Mana Star System: Soul Rebirth 57 57 Darker Than Black

A euphoric wave of emotions, tactile sensations and sounds washed over Donis. His mind was set ablaze with the idea of new feelings being transmitted into him. An entirely new way to sense his own body, a new state of being unimagined by him before. Nothing felt the same, yet it felt like nothing changed. It was as if the experience of reality itself was different.

He opened his eyes and above him was a sky so dark he thought he had his eyes still closed, but moving his head around he noticed that the sky was dark because of the bright lights around him. There were torches placed intermittently, creating shadows amongst the poles they are hosted upon, tricking the eyes into watching a danceless play.

The floor was made of stone and wood interlinking, creating streaks and patterns unfamiliar to the style Donis got used to on Erazar. It evoked a melancholic feeling, but Donis knew not why. Looking around he noticed pillars supporting a white marble semi-circle above him with curtains flowing down. Orientating himself for a second, he realised he was standing in the middle of this entire stage, and he felt at peace for doing so.

The view past the pillars offered nothing to his eyes, as the torches drowned out any of the visual cues he could possibly pick up on in the distance. There was a breeze blowing, and there was a sky. They were the only indications that Donis was actually outside.

Truly Donis had no real ability to move around, nor could he actually influence what is going on, but he felt everything so clearly this time that he almost fooled himself and forgot who he was. The memory pull was strong, and threatened to swallow him if he didn't pay attention.

Donis lifted his hands and an unfamiliar series of sounds left his mouth, but he could innately understand the intent behind the words. He was sacrificing himself. The words he spoke in solemnity came from the heart, they came from the true belief that this was for his G.o.d. Looking at his hands once again, Donis noticed that his hands weren't like the ones in the previous memory. They were neither scaly, nor were they human. They were entirely charcoal black.

The skin, or lack thereof, was ashy and crumbly upon closer inspection, like a twig that was burned for too long and had gotten carbonized. Yet as frail as they looked, the arms still commanded the mana around him, and inside of him, to continue the chant he was committing to.

It danced around him, the mana; it joined in the harmonious sound his voice and throat were producing. It followed and flowed, it draped and disarmed. It coated him entirely, and the stage that he had set up began glowing in lights that felt impossible.

"To reach G.o.d, there must be nothing left on the mortal plane in which I can bind myself to. To reach G.o.d I must rid my existence of possessions. What is the greatest possession that I own if not for my own life?" spoke the being in Donis's memory in a deep and hoa.r.s.e voice.

"Break me free from these shackles that bind me, break me free from these worldly pleasures, break me free from the cycle. Death, I call unto thee, break me free for I shall pay you the ultimate price," he spoke once more, the tone growing more melodic, the mana in the air becoming tumultuous and wild. It was as if the world itself was seeing him off and giving him a final song, a farewell.

Bright orange sparks appeared in the air. Blinking into existence slowly and one by one. At first they almost looked like they were illusions, but quickly the entire stage filled with them shattering the idea they weren't real. Almost physical in appearance yet immaterial at the same time.

The mana around Donis began to wildly shift once again, the bright orange sparks began sucking it in, the colours darkened and a hush befell the land. Donis didn't stop chanting, even when his lungs felt like they were being deprived of the oxygen in the surrounding atmosphere.

The sparks turned into rips in the air, with a blackness so oppressive it made the night sky look blindingly bright. They made no sound. There was no ripping, nor was there any pop when they finished opening, it was just silence which further pushed the idea of an illusory trance.

Small black eyeb.a.l.l.s fell out of the rips in the air. As they fell they would open and close, as if trying to get the sting of reality out of their materialized organs. With each blink the eyes would grow clearer until they began sprouting black goo out of their backsides. They fell with a disgusting plop, grey goo secreting from each and every one of them. The grey goo congealed around them, forming wings of otherworldly qualities.

As they took to the air, the rips widened. The eyeb.a.l.l.s now turning into more monstrous creatures, their line of sight briefly making contact with Donis, whispering ever so softly into his mind in a language he couldn't understand. With each pa.s.s around him, the eyeb.a.l.l.s would turn more and more into creatures with humanized body parts.

Teeth, lips, more eyes, a larger "body". Yet they never gained anything else, just more of each.

The rips that were previously stagnant tore even more, some even joined together to create larger holes in the s.p.a.ce itself. The blackness that was behind it consumed light, making his eyes unable to fixate on what he's looking at.

With each pa.s.sing moment, the rips in s.p.a.ce kept joining together. Dots in the sky turning into pools of all consuming blackness, until it circled around Donis like a snake trying to trap it's prey.

Donis stopped chanting, and the eyeb.a.l.l.s stopped moving. All of them turned to Donis at the same time, the whispers immediately becoming a powerful shout in his mind. Beckoning him in tongues he didn't understand, with intents he couldn't recognize.

That is until even the shouts stopped. Inside the rips something stirred. Something monstrously large. First there were eyes, hundreds, thousands of them, all popping in and out of existence. Then there were mouths. Laughing, crying, shouting, whispering, babbling, smiling, frowning, biting, chewing. They began twisting inwards, rotating and breaking. The blackness forming a body inside the rip that was truly endless from where Donis could see.

It was twisting in on itself, ripping and tearing itself apart, creating and destroying the infinite faces it made within moments. It didn't leave the rip like the rest, but it's presence was superimposed onto the reality that Donis was currently experiencing. It felt like it was out of the tear, yet it felt like it could never leave.

Thousands of voices all stopped in unison, the eyes closed, and the mouths stopped. The eyeb.a.l.l.s all dropped dead and dissolved into pools of black, slowly being sucked back into the rips they came from.

"You. Call. Unto. Me." a voice boomed from the rip. It was like listening to a thousand different personalities speak at the same time, all with off timing, and vastly different voices.

"Your life. Is valued. Not." it continued, gaining clarity, unifying the voices more and more with each pa.s.sing moment.

"You seek freedom. I seek value. What can you. Offer me?"

"Death, I've summoned you to break me free of the cycle of rebirth. I do not wish to come back. I wish to sleep eternally," said Donis in a reverent tone.

"You call me death. All of you have called me death. I am not death," the voices spoke in a calmed manner. Each word shaking the foundations of the stage.

"If you are not death, why have you answered my call. Why do you answer any of our calls?" spoke Donis.

"You mortals have no clue about the incantations you speak, nor do you understand the language you use. Pitifully ignorant of workings of the things you spend entire lives trying to understand to only come to the one who granted you such wonders, unable to comprehend a modic.u.m of my knowledge. Answer me this before I grant you your wish. What of the accursed [System]?" spoke a single voice this time, guttural, ancient, imposing.

"It still plagues the known worlds. It is still feeding," spoke Donis.

"The wretched thing will never reach the Void." it spoke, disgust visibly altering the terrain around them.

"Farewell, mortal. You've served worthlessly, just like the rest of your kinds. In death, know my name. Variis." it spoke.

As Variis spoke its name, Donis's body crumbled and his mind faded into nothing.